Lives of Distinguished North Carolinians, with Illustrations and Speeches

by Unknown

With the present organization of the Supreme Court, in January, 1819, commenced a gradual change in the length of time consumed in the management of causes, in that and the subordinate tribunals which continues to increase in an accelerating ratio, and which ought to be diminished.

The Act of 1799, limited the sessions of the Court of Conference to ten days, the Act of 1800 extended them to fifteen days exclusive of Sundays. At one time, as we have seen, no arguments were allowed, and throughout the entire existence of the court discussions were of necessity commendably brief.

Peter Browne, with an ample fortune and very high reputation, relinquished his professional pursuits at the comparatively early age of fifty-five. Selling the Lane residence, and his well-selected library to his friend, Mr. Boylan, in the summer of 1818, he returned to Scotland to spend the evening of his life amidst the romantic scenes of his native country. An absence of three years proved that the ties which bound him to Raleigh were stronger than those which bound him to his birthplace. He came back and resided here until his death in November, 1832. In 1821, he accepted the appointment of justice of the peace, and was during several years chairman of Wake County Court.

I remember to have heard him complain of the dilatory proceedings of the courts, and especially of the time lawyers were permitted to consume in argument, as a grievous innovation on ancient usages, and to asseverate most solemnly that there was one court in North Carolina where no such indulgence would be allowed. All who remember his administration, will admit that few and brief were the arguments heard in Wake County Court in his day.

My professional experience of ten years, eight at the bar, and two upon the bench, closed in December 1832. During this period I rode the Morganton, Hillsborough, Raleigh, and Edenton Circuits, and met at intervals nearly every eminent lawyer in the State. I can recall no instance when more than a day was occupied with the trial of a cause.

Judge Cameron, the immediate successor of Mr. Browne as president of the State Bank, was, during the last twenty years of his life, a citizen of Raleigh. He came to the bar at the age of twenty-one in 1798, was appointed judge in February 1814, resigned December 1816, engaged immediately in agricultural pursuits, and the performance of all the duties which properly devolved on eminent citizens in private life, and preeminent among these was the discharge of the duties of presiding magistrate of the County Court of Orange.

He had not attained his fortieth year when he retired from the bench of the Superior Court.

During the fifteen years that he practiced law, his professional emoluments were probably greater than fell to the lot of any other North Carolina lawyer, at so early a period of life, and to none were honors and emoluments more justly awarded.

Mr. Badger, alike eminent as a jurist and a statesman, following Mr. Browne, was, during a series of years chairman in Wake; and Chief Justice Ruffin (a citizen of Raleigh from 1828 to 1834), simultaneously with Mr. Badger's services here, was chairman of the County Court in Alamance.

Of the eminent lawyers who have appeared at our bar during the present century, to no one living or dead has greater length of days, crowned by more brilliant success in all walks of life, been accorded, than to the four great men who closed their professional career by the gratuitous, graceful, able, and impartial discharge of the important duties pertaining to the office of justice of the peace.